I fled from the window, terrified—beside myself. A piece of the wall cracked and fell in enormous fragments, and a square window took the shape of an isosceles triangle; through a corner of the roof I could see the sky. Bits of lime and splinters struck me in the face. I ran further in, following others, who were saying, “This way! this way!”
“Augustine! Augustine!” I called again. At last I saw him among those who were running from one room to another, going up a ladder which led to a garret.
“Are you alive?” I asked him.
“I do not know; it is not important,” he answered.
In the garret we broke through a partition wall, and passing into another room, we found an outside staircase. We descended and came to another house. Some soldiers followed, looking for a place to get into the street, and others remained there. The picture of that poor little room is indelibly fixed in my memory, with all its lines and colors, and flooded with plentiful light from a large window, opened upon the street. Portraits of the Virgin and of the saints covered the uneven walls. Two or three old trunks covered with goatskin stood on one side. On the other side we saw a woman’s clothes hanging upon hooks and nails, and a very high but poor-looking bed, although the sheets were fresh. In the window were three large flowerpots with plants in them. Sheltered behind them were two women firing furiously upon the French who occupied the breach. They had two guns. One was charging, the other firing. The one who was firing had been stooping to aim from behind the flowerpots. Resting the trigger a minute, she lifted her head a little to look at the field of battle.
“Manuela Sancho,” I exclaimed, placing my hand upon the head of the heroic girl, “resistance is no longer of any use. The next house is already destroyed by the batteries of San José, and the balls are already beginning to fall upon the roof of this. Let us go.”
She took no notice, and went on shooting. At last the house, which was even less able than its neighbor to sustain the shock of the projectiles, quivered as if the earth trembled beneath its foundations. Manuela Sancho threw down her gun. She and the woman who was with her ran into an alcove, where I heard them crying bitterly. Entering, we found the two girls embracing an old crippled woman who was trying to get up from her bed.
“Mother, it is nothing,” Manuela said soothingly, covering her with whatever came first to her hand; “we are only going into the street because it seems as if the house is going to fall down.”
The old woman did not speak. She could not speak. The two girls had taken her in their arms; but we took her in ours, charging them to bring our guns and whatever clothing they could save. We passed out into a court which opened into another street where the fire had not yet reached.
XVIII
The French had taken possession also of the battery of Los Martires. That same afternoon they were masters of the ruins of Santa Engracia and the convent of Trinitarios. Is it conceivable that the defence of one plaza continued after all that surrounded it was taken? No, it is not conceivable; nor in all military prevision has it ever been supposed that after the enemy had gained the walls by irresistible superiority of material strength, the houses would offer new lines of defence improvised on the initiative of every citizen. It is not conceivable that one house taken, a veritable siege must necessarily be organized to take the next one, employing the spade, the mine, the bayonet—devising an ingenious stratagem against a partition wall. It is not conceivable that one part of a pavement being taken, it would be necessary to pass opposite to it to put into execution the theories of Vauban, and that to cross a gutter it would be necessary to make trenches, zigzags, and covered ways.
The French generals put their hands to their brows, saying, “This is not like anything that we have ever seen. In the glorious annals of the empire one finds many passages like this: ‘We have entered Spandau. Tomorrow we shall be in Berlin.’ That which had not yet been written was this: ‘After two days and two nights of fighting, we have taken house No. 1 in the Calle de Pabostre. We do not know when we shall be able to take No. 2.’ ”
We had no time for rest. The two cannons that raked the Calle de Pabostre and the angle of the Puerta Quemada were left entirely without men. Some of us ran to serve them, and the rest occupied houses in the Calle de Palomar. The French stopped firing against the buildings which had been abandoned, repairing them and occupying them as rapidly as they could. They stopped up holes with beams, gravel, and sacks of wool. As they could not traverse without risk the space between their new quarters and the crumbling walls, they commenced to open a ditch and zigzag from the Molino of the city to the house which we had occupied, and of which now only the lowest story offered any lodgment. We knew that when once masters of that house they would try, by tearing down partition walls, to gain possession of the whole block. In order to prevent this, the troops which we could spare were distributed through all the buildings in danger of such attack. At the same time our troops were raising barricades at the entrances of the streets, availing themselves of the rubbish and fragments in their work. We toiled with frenzied ardor in these various tasks. The fighting was least difficult of all. From inside the houses we threw down over the balconies all the furniture
